


She is Ulla

by Anonymous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BAMF Women, Gen, Minor Character Death, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 04:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11751882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Kudos and comments are always appreciated :)





	She is Ulla

In an east-facing bedroom, an old woman lay tucked in a bed beneath a heavy, hand-stitched quilt. Her breathing was labored and her eyes drooping from the effort of keeping them open. Hoarsely, she called, "Ulla."

A moment later, a waif-thin girl with a wan complexion came into the room. Her expression was one of grief and terror. "Yes, Nana?" she whispered.

The old woman, Nana, pulled her arm out from beneath her quilt and held it out to her youngest grandchild. It shook. "Come to me," she said. "Come sit beside me."

With great reluctance, Ulla went to her nana. As there was no chair near the old woman's bedside, she gingerly sat on the edge of the bed. Instantly, Nana winced. "I'm sorry!" the girl cried, trying to jump up from the bed.

Before she could, her grandmother's trembling hand clamped down on her thigh with surprising strength. "No," she said. "I'm old and dying. I ache. This is not your fault."

Tears gathering in the corners of her hazel eyes, Ulla begged, "Don't say that, Nana."

Nana met Ulla's gaze. Like her granddaughter, her eyes were hazel. Ulla was the only one of her grandchildren to have her eyes; to have the eyes of her own father, whom she'd loved and idolized in the way only the youngest daughter of a family can. "I am," she told the girl forcefully. "There is no point in pretending otherwise."

The child sobbed.

Using what little strength of hers remained, Nana squeezed her granddaughter's leg. "Hush, Ulla. With time you'll understand this is just the way of things."

"The way of things?" the girl parroted, an angry flush coming to her throat. "The way of things! The way of things is going to leave me all alone! No one loves me like you, Nana." Her fury gone and a torrent of tears falling from the soft edge of her jaw, she whimpered, "Dad's gone, Mummy is scared of me, Aunt Ingrid won't let me, Arnold or Margo play together and Uncle Ewan won't so much as step foot in a room where I am!"

Nana couldn't deny that she was sorry about leaving her granddaughter. The girl's situation was far from an ideal one. But… She also couldn't deny that she was ready. At ninety-six years old, she was ready to go the other side and join her beloved husband and her family and friends who'd passed before her. Sighing heavily, she told the ten-year-old, "I'm sorry, my dear girl."

"What do you have to be sorry for? It's not your fault I'm a– a–"

While her nails weren't long, they were not nonexistent either. Her granddaughter hissed at the pinch caused by them sinking into the flesh of her thigh. "It is no more my fault than it is  _your_ fault, Ulla."

She sniffed quietly into her lap for a moment, saying nothing.

"Your mother doesn't want you to know who did this to you," said Nana.

The girl raised her head. "I know," she replied, confusion clear in the crinkle of her pert nose.

Turning away from her youngest granddaughter, Nana focused her gaze on a painting hanging on the wall across from her bed. It was housewarming gift her older sister bought her years and years ago when she and Thorin first moved into this house. It was a painting of a tundra landscape not too unlike the one Thorin grew up not far from with his parents and little brothers. In it, if you stared just long enough, you could see a near perfectly white wolf creeping across the landscape toward a pair of reindeer rooting in the snow to get to the grass beneath.

Once, she thought the painting beautiful. Nowadays, it just reminded her of Ulla. How if you stared into her pretty hazel eyes just long enough you could see the wolf inside her lurking not far from the surface. Her granddaughter thought she wasn't afraid of her, but she  _was_. Nana was as afraid of the wolf inside Ulla as she was that someday, somehow, the wolf in the painting would finally reach the reindeer and turn them into nothing but bits of flesh and pools of crimson across the tundra landscape.

When you spend your days fearing something, though, you eventually became numb to it. You learned to work around. Push it away and go about your business and pretend things were normal. Or, at least, you did if you knew what was good for you. Someday Ulla's poor mother, Nana's gentle Lottie, was going to drive herself mad with the fear. What would happen on that day Nana couldn't begin to predict, but she hoped both her daughter and granddaughter came out of it unscathed.

"I don't agree," she finally said.

Ulla went stiff as a corpse.

Returning her gaze to her granddaughter, she informed the girl, "There was no good reason for it, what that monster did. But I have heard since that it is a penchant of the beast's to target children. He is a disgusting fellow. And very, very dangerous." She studied the girl's blank face. "Do you understand, Ulla?"

The girl nodded. "Yes, Nana."

Satisfied, she went on. "His name is Fenrir Greyback." She pointed to the corner of her room where her wardrobe was nestled. "Go open the bottom drawer and look in the right back corner," ordered Nana.

Still a bit tense, her granddaughter got to her feet and walked over to the wardrobe. She knelt down and looked back at her, uncertainty pulling at the corners of her mouth.

"Go on," Nana insisted.

Ulla pulled open the poplar drawer and pushed aside the sweaters that lay inside to get the back, right corner. A moment later, the girl pulls away, a photo in held in her shaking hands. "Is this him?" she asked in little more than a whisper.

"Yes," answered Nana. "It took a bit of work, but I got my hands on it a few years after you were bitten. Apparently, he was brought to the Ministry briefly for questioning after the murders of several Muggle children. They took a picture of him at the time."

Pushing the drawer closed, Ulla got to her feet and returned to Nana's side. "But the Ministry doesn't have him anymore, do they?"

"No," she replied. "He had followers help him escape."

Ulla's gaze returned to the photo. "Good," she finally said. "Because I'm going to kill him." Eyes flashing gold, she hissed, "He ruined my  _life_. I will make him pay for it."

Nana should have told the girl no. That vengeance only would beget more violence, but she didn't. She was old and tired. She knew there was no way her granddaughter would hear reason now. She was certain time would dull the fire in the girl's heart and when she reached the point it became feasible for her to seek out and kill the monster she would not.

"Don't tell your mother," she said to Ulla. "It would break her heart to know that I told you."

Slipping the photo into the pocket of her coveralls the girl nodded. "Yes, Nana."

Now exhausted, Nana closed her eyes and murmured, "Be a good girl now and get me your mother."

"Love you, Nana," the girl mumbled, pressing a dry, sweet kiss to her cheek.

When her granddaughter's footsteps faded away, Nana took her last breath and passed peacefully onto the other side.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated :)


End file.
